TOI correspondent from Washington: US President Donald Trump has certifiably changed his mind on regime change. On Tuesday, the MAGA supremo directly encouraged a public uprising in Iran after imposing a blanket 25 per cent tariff on any country that continues to do business with the Islamic Republic in an effort to topple the ruling Islamic government in Teheran.“Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price….HELP IS ON ITS WAY. MIGA!!!” Trump posted on social media amid reports of a bloodbath in Iran following a crackdown on protests, unapologetically wading into Iran’s internal affairs. Trump’s open backing for the revolt came hours after he said Iranian leadership had reached out to him for talks and the U.S was weighing a choice between military action and negotiations, with some senior aides, including vice-president J.D.Vance, reportedly in favor of the latter course. “There seems to be some people killed who weren’t supposed to be killed. We’re looking at it very seriously; the military’s looking at it. And there’s a couple options,” Trump said on Monday as reports of a bloody crackdown flowed out of Iran. By Tuesday morning, the U.S President appeared to have set his mind on effecting a regime change in yet another country (after similar approach in Venezuela and Cuba), announcing he has “cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS,” and pledging “HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”While Trump campaigned in the past against regime-change wars, his administration is now openly exploring tools to bring about leadership change in Iran and Cuba, after effecting one in Venezuela. He has reportedly been briefed on options ranging from long-range missile strikes to cyber operations and psychological campaigns in Iran, and even though White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said “diplomacy is always the first option for the president,” the temptation to pull off a coup in Iran on the back of widespread protests appears irresistible for now for Washington hawks like Senator Lindsay Graham. Analysts point to several reasons behind Trump’s evolution from opposing regime change to actively pursuing it in countries such as Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba. The administration views these governments as economically weak and politically brittle, believes coercive leverage can work without large-scale U.S. troop deployments, and increasingly frames them as part of a broader anti-American axis aligned with China and Russia. A more conspiratorial explanation by critics, who have dubbed Trump the “Walt Disney of chaos” is such frenetic activity is designed to distract voters from everyday issues at home. Many MAGA principals remain skeptical of Washington getting into another fracas in the middle-east. Former Trump aide Steve Bannon among others are berating Fox News and Graham for encouraging the latest caper, reminding them of the quagmire the U.S got into in Iraq. While most Democrats have uniformly opposed U.S interference in Iran, even some Republican lawmakers, the “non-interventionist” wing of the party have cautioned about getting into another fracas.“The Constitution does not permit the executive branch to unilaterally commit an act of war against a sovereign nation that hasn’t attacked the United States,” Thomas Massie, an anti-Trump Kentucky Republican said while introducing a bipartisan War Powers Resolution to block unauthorized hostilities against Iran.
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